The Relevance of Virgil’s Aeneid: A Conversation with Scott McGill & Susannah Wright

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What does a 2,000-year-old epic have to say to us today about exile, duty, love, power, war, misinformation, and the fragile hopes of human community?

A great deal, say translators Scott McGill and Susannah Wright, whose new English translation of Virgil’s Aeneid captures both the grandeur of the epic and its deeply human emotional core.

“We were really keen to try to capture…the humanity of the poem, the deep pathos that Virgil generates, the power of the emotional world of the poem.”

In this conversation, they talk about collaboration, emotion, translation craft, and why the Aeneid remains one of the most morally and politically provocative works ever written—wrestling with migration, empire, trauma, rage, resilience, and the cost of duty.

They also explore unforgettable characters like Aeneas and Dido, the role of Rumor as an ancient “fake news engine,” and what we gain when we keep engaging with the classics today.

We also play clips from some of our favorite episodes of 2025: Links to episodes

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Key Words: Virgil, Aeneid translation, Scott McGill, Susannah Wright, Aeneas and Dido, Roman empire, epic poem, Writer’s Voice podcast,

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Key Topics

• Why translate the Aeneid now
• Collaboration and co-translation
• Emotional depth vs. epic grandeur
• Aeneas’s duty, sacrifice, and humanity
• Dido’s heartbreak and power
• Ambiguity of empire & colonialism
• Refugees, displacement & war
• Rumor as ancient misinformation
• Violence, morality & the troubling ending
• Why the classics still matter today

Read Interview Transcript